nk, again offering the plug.

After a quiet night and a somewhat later start than usual, the day's run
to Cow Creek began, and not five miles from the camp site a sizable herd
of buffalo was sighted. The same thing took place again, the same
confusion, the same senseless chasing without weapons, but this time
there was added the total abandonment of several wagons while the
drivers, unhitching one animal, grabbed guns and joined in the attack,
not realizing that mules hardly were suited for chasing an animal which,
clumsy as it appeared, nearly equalled a horse in speed when once
started on its awkward gallop. But in the results of the chase there was
one noticeable difference between this and the previous hunt, for the
green nimrods had asked questions of the hunters since their first try
at the prairie cattle, and they had cherished the answers. They no
longer fired blindly, after the first flush of their excitement died
down, for now they ranged up alongside their lumbering victims from the
rear and aimed a little behind the short ribs, or a few inches above
the brisket and behind the shoulder. And this hunt was a great success
from the standpoint of the plainsmen who had bought Colt's newfangled
repeating pistols, for they proved their deadliness in such capable
hands, and speeded up the kill.

A group of tenderfeet watched an old hunter butcher a fat cow in almost
the time it takes to tell of it, slitting the skin along the spine from
the shoulder to the tail, and down in front of the shoulder and around
the neck. He removed it as far down as the brisket and laid the freed
skin on the ground to receive the fleece from along the spine, the
protruding hump ribs, which he severed with a tomahawk; and then he
added the liver, tongue, kidneys, certain parts of the intestine, and
one shoulder. Severing the other shoulder and cutting the skin free on
both sides of the body, he bundled up the choice cuts in it, carried it
to his horse and returned to camp. In a few moments the butchering
became general, and soon the triumphant hunters returned to the wagons
with fresh meat enough to provide an unstinted feast for the entire
caravan.

The journey was resumed and the twenty miles to Cow Creek was made in
good time. Here the difficulties of the Little Arkansas were again met
and conquered and the wagons corralled before dark.

It was at this camp that Tom and Hank became certain that they were
being spied upon by Pedro an